Day Four: Into the Country

This is going to be a long one; go get yourself a little snack first.

On Thursday, we had a big day ahead of us.  We started out early packing up two days’ worth of belongings into one backpack to take to the village of Sonador..  This was particularly difficult for me.  I could barely fit my stuff into one bag.  In fact, I had to ask Marianne to carry my crayons that I had brought as a gift for my Sonador host family.  Erin and I had more delicious fruit for breakfast as well as boiled potatoes and delicious fried yellow cheese.  I could get a little too used to the fried cheese.

We were almost ready when Ileana arrived to pick us up.  We were going to begin our day with a visit to the mayor of Tenares, Ermes Rodríguez.  We arrived to the municipal building around 9 or so in the morning for our quick visit.  Lots of business was taking place in the municipal building when we arrived; it was bustling with activity.  The mayor’s office was also quite nice.  I doubt, however, that this was where he actually conducted business because there was not a single sheet of paper on the desk, and there was lots of seating available; I think this was just where he received guests for meetings.

At this point, I had begun to notice that all of the lights in the DR were compact fluorescents of relatively low wattage.  I’m sure that this is an energy saving measure, but I began to notice it everywhere.  When there was not the opportunity for natural light, folks used the low-wattage fluorescents.

The mayor also had a quite swanky glass desk, like you might expect in an executive office in New York.  We explained to him what we were doing in Tenares and why we were pleased to meet with him.  He gave us some input about the needs of his city and how the funding of public services works.  It was a very brief meeting.  We took a few pictures with him and then walked around the building a little bit.  We were introduced to a few young women on his staff, though I didn’t catch what their roles were.

This little girl came for her inoculations.

From there, we begin the trip to Sonador, a tiny village in the center of the Dominican Republic.  Along the way, we stopped at a small public clinic in the village of Los Cacaos where Ileana had made arrangements for us to meet with the community doctor.  Unfortunately, the doctor was not available to meet with us due to a personal emergency, but we spent a few minutes speaking with the nurse on staff.  She told us that the biggest health concerns  that she sees these days are the flu, which often leads to (I found out after trying hard to translate the video of the discussion) tonsillitis (amigdalitis), vaginitis (and Pap smears—“Papanicolaous”), and a lot of immunizations for children.  They need more health professionals, but they usually just have traveling nurses who come for a few days and then move on.  They used to keep a lot of medicines in the clinic, but when it comes into the village, it gets used up quickly.   The medicines that they feel they still need are for flu and parasites, and just basic antibiotics.  When patients come in, the doctor usually makes a list of what medicines are needed to order from Tenares, and sometimes the medicine comes in and sometimes it doesn’t.  The nurse believes that they have a lot of great programs right now for hygiene, first aid, and immunizations, but they do send the patients they aren’t able to treat into the cities of Tenares and Salcedo for more comprehensive treatment at the hospitals there.  Ileana explained to us near the end of the visit to the clinic that when she had lived here previously, Doctors without Borders would come through and perform corrective surgeries on people who had crossed eyes (a result of living for so many generations in such a small community).  It was a fascinating look at health care in rural areas. 

From there, we kept moving on the Sonador.  The village used to have 75 families, but now is down to only 40 families.  In order to get there, the van dropped us off at the head of a small dirt and rock road that we had to hike a few miles to get to the village.  A man named Chide (Chee-day) met us there to lead us up to the village.  He seems to be in his late 30s or early 40s and is clearly one of the leaders of the village.  He leads the masses in the village church, and he and his wife are the music directors for the masses.  Chide led us down a long path, about 2 miles, to get to the part of Sonador where we would be staying.  We had to cross the Río Sonador several times, wading through the knee-high, COLD water on foot.  At first, the water was startlingly cold, but by the end of the hike, I welcomed opportunities to get in it.  The water seemed very clear and clean.  I predicted that I’d be the first one to go face-first into the water, but it never happened; none of us fell in the water!

As we approached the village, it became clear that what we had been living in Tenares had been the high life.  This was as rustic a culture as I’d ever seen.  Interspersed amongst the cacao fields were small, brightly colored wooden homes painted in very beautiful tropical colors with chickens and roosters scattered about.  This is the REAL meaning of “free-range.”  We also saw many dogs in the village, but it became clear that few, if any, of them actually conformed to our idea of a pet.  These animals did not sleep on anybody’s bed and they did not get petted or bathed regularly.  Many of the females  had clearly just given birth recently, and we saw many small pups around.  One dog in particular alarmed many of us because it was quite emaciated yet still trying to feed its puppies, which were also a bit too scrawny. 

Yolanda and Ileana

The first person we met in the village of Sonador was Yolanda.  Yolanda has an amazing story.  Her husband left her several years ago with several children and no income.  Instead of becoming a prostitute (did I imagine that conversation?), some villagers gave her a plot of land on which she immediately began to farm every inch!  She grew vegetables and cacao and anything she could get to grow there.  She then would sell the food she didn’t feed to her family to make some extra money.  When we got there, Yolanda was selling these rag rugs that she would make from scraps of old clothes.  As time went by, we realized that everyone in the village had these rag rugs in their houses and they also would purchase them to use on their horses and mules as saddles or under saddles for comfort. 

When we arrived to the village, we were immediately dispersed to our families, where we stayed one to each household.  I was the first one dropped off with my Sonador family.  My host mother was named Domenga, and she had a husband, whose name I never caught.  I only saw him twice in the dark anyhow.  She also had a son who was about 18; he worked in the cacao fields with the other men from the village.  Her daughter, Rosairis, was 14.  She was a lovely girl who was just about ready to graduate early from high school.  She was very quiet, and I think La Americana scared her a little bit because I kept trying to talk to her, but my Spanish was so bad that she rarely knew what I was asking about.  She and Domenga were very patient hostesses.  My first stop was a meal, but I can’t really get started discussing my visit to Sonador until I explain Domenga’s house.  I made a video of the house two days later, but I think it needs to be seen now in order to understand where I was living.  This shaky video takes you for a tour through Domenga’s home and her property and gives a glimpse into the life I led for that very brief time that I was a guest in their home.

When I first arrived and met Domenga, I sat down to eat a little bit, but I was so hot and sweaty from the hike to the village that food really wasn’t what I was looking for.  It was only about 85 degrees, but I had a LOT of gear in my backpack that I was hauling.  The mea was very simple: rice, beans, boiled bananas.  It was very tasty.

After my quick meal, Rosairis took me across the little road to the church so that I could snoop a bit.  It is a very charming church with a lovely altar and a gigantic sound system so that the whole village knows when mass is.  I then went to see Erin, who was staying next door with Dorita and her family.  When I got there, Erin had already busted out her bag of balloons for the kids.  They  LOVED the balloons (los globos).  After watching the kids have fun with those for a while, it was time to head to the swimming hole and waterfall that Ileana had promised us.  I invited Rosairis to join us, so we went and put on our bathing suits, collected our other traveling companions, and ventured into the woods following Rosairis.  After climbing down hills and slipping in cacao leaves for 15 minutes, we finally reached the water, but it wasn’t the right water.  It became clear that Rosairis had made a wrong turn.  I thought this was hilarious!  We backtracked a bit and then finally reached the waterfall, which Los Dominicanos call “un chorro.”  Do not confuse this with “un churro” as I did.  You will be sadly disappointed...or simply confused.

The water was fairly low and very cold, but we quickly got used to it.  I could have stayed in there all day.  We made lots of funny videos of ourselves bursting through the waterfall like we were on some kind of crazy jungle game show.  It was a fantastic setting, and my waterproof video camera really came through for me.  However, in the interest of discretion, I have decided not to share the bathing suit pictures.  :P

Sweet Rosairis before I soaked her.

Rosairis did her best to stay out of the water, but I finally was able to pull her in.  That water was COLD. 

After our swim, we went back to our respective homes and “showered.”  Domenga’s shower is really just a hose, a bucket, and a shower stall, but I was clean when it was all over!  I am definitely learning how to use VERY little water to perform my daily chores.   After that, we all met up again and hung out for a little while waiting for Marianne.  Where could she be?  When she finally arrived, she showed us that Tonya, Rosa’s daughter had painted her nails.  This is hilarious because Marianne is/was NOT the fancy nail decoration kind.  Tonya wants to go to the US to be a manicurist, and I guess Marianne was a walking advertisement.  We were all very impressed!

The four gals huddled together to get reception on Cell Phone Hill

Once we were all together, Ileana took us on a little hike up what we now refer to as “cell phone hill,” a small mountain that has a beautiful view of the area.  When we finally reached the top of it, there were three or four women already up there all standing close together, facing the same direction, talking on their cell phones.  It turns out that they climb this hill at pre-arranged times to make calls to their relatives in the US because this hill gets the best reception.  Really funny!

We sat up there and looked  at the gorgeous countryside for a while (el campo).  It was spectacular.  From there, we headed on further to meet with a gentleman named Ramón Cacao.  Ramón owns a cacao farm in Sonador where many of the men work.  He used to be the mayor of Sonador for many years before Chide.  In order to get to his home, we had to climb up more hills and over some fences.  Unfortunately, I got caught on one of the fences, tore the side of my pants and ended up with a four-inch gash in my leg from a nail that had been sticking.  (Many thanks to my GP for making sure my tetanus shot was up-to-date before I left.)  Luckily, Erin saved the day with her first aid kit, and Nurse Kasey was there to clean me up and get me all bandaged.  The gash bled for about the next 12 hours, but it’s totally fine now, save for a hellacious bruise.   

When we reached Ramón’s house, we discovered that he was quite hard of hearing, as was the woman who had walked with us up to his home.  It turns out that, due to poor healthcare availability in the village, it is not uncommon for people to let ear infections go untreated, resulting in significant hearing loss.  We met a few people in that same situation.  Ileana quickly decided that talking to Ramón was going to be too difficult, so we decided to just head back down the hill.  Unfortunately, as we went down a different dirt path than we took up the hill, Erin fell and scraped herself up pretty well.  Again, first aid kit and Nurse Kasey to the rescue!  We got Erin all cleaned up and bandaged and headed back on down the mountain to the village.

As we walked down, Ileana pointed out to us the aqueduct system used by the village.  The water enters a giant holding tank about midway down the mountain.  It enters the tank from three pipes that drain the water from above.  Then, it flows down the mountain to the homes in the village.  Ileana said that every once in a while, they shut off the pipes entering into the tank and people use up or store all of the water held in the cistern.  Once the tank is empty, they get in there with Clorox and scrub the tank clean.  She said that the village smells like Clorox for a while after that.  Then they turn the intake pipes back on to flush it all out. 

Strangely, as we went down the hill, we also saw that there was a little cotton plant growing by the side of the path.  That was a bit unexpected; it was the only one we saw.

Dominos is a hugely popular game in the DR.  Luckily, before we left, Ileana taught many of us to play dominos in the Dominican style.  It is incredibly fun!  As we walked back to our houses, we saw this little house with its own little domino set-up.  It only had two benches instead of four, but it was clearly for dominos. 

Ileana and Kasey

Ileana and Erin

I went home from this bloody adventure and ate dinner at Domenga’s there was no power, so I ate by candle light alone in la sala, the family room of the house.   There were some cooked veggies and a little salad.  I have come to understand that meat is rare in this community.  They eat a LOT of potatoes, platanos, and beans and rice as well as a delicious little salad of cucumbers, lettuce, and vinegar.  Very yummy.  After dinner, we headed back to Ileana’s house to play dominos on the porch with some of the people from the village.  I dared not get involved at this point because I wasn’t yet comfortable enough with my skeels, but Erin, Ileana, and Kasey got right in there.  Ileana is quite good at it.  Erin and Kasey also held their own pretty well!  It was impressive. 

After several hours of dominos, we headed back to our respective homes.  Erin and I walked back to our end of the road.  I used her latrine because I didn’t want to go by myself at my house since the latrine was in the dark in the back.  When I arrived home, it was about 11:30 or so, and the power had just come one, as evidenced by the dim bulb that went on over our heads when I walked in.  I heard poor Rosairis get up to turn it off.  That night, I slept in Domenga’s bed which was outfitted with a mosquito net while I was out.  It was quite charming, really.  I felt quite protected by the mosquito net.  (When we returned to Tenares, I tried to explain to Marilu’s girls that little girls in the US would call that a “princess bed.”) 

Unfortunately, my sleep that night was not at all sound.  At 3:15 a.m., a truck rumbled by the house pausing just long enough to honk briefly and then move on.  At 3:30, the truck came by again but much more slowly.  I found out the next day that this was Chide going through town picking up people to take them to the city of Santiago where they were to meet with an eye doctor and get free eye care.  Chide took six or seven people, as I understand it, and when they returned, one had a procedure to uncross his eyes and the rest had new glasses; $30,000 worth of eye care for free is what we were told!  Amazing. 

So once the truck went by, I couldn’t get back to slept, mostly because I had to…wet, as my sister would say.  Ileana had warned us about this.  It is unwise to get up in the middle of the night to use the toilet because it wakes everyone up and it’s a pain to go out of the house to the latrine, so a bedpan is provided under each bed.  Check.  Yet another aversion conquered.  Yep, everyone can hear you and that’s just how it’s gonna be.  When in Sonador…